What is the average lead response time?

About 42 hours. That comes from a Harvard Business Review study published in March 2011. Researchers sent a test lead to 2,241 U.S. companies. Among companies that answered within 30 days, the average answer took 42 hours. 23% never answered at all.

What is a good lead response time?

Under five minutes. XANT's 2021 study of 5.7 million leads found conversion rates about 8 times higher when contact happened in the first five minutes. The same data found that under 1% of first tries actually happened that fast. So a five-minute response is a real edge, not a basic standard.

How often do law firms answer the phone?

Less than half the time. In a secret-shopper study of 500 law firms for Clio's 2024 Legal Trends Report, only 40% answered the phone, and 48% couldn't be reached at all. A 2026 SSRN study of 1,000 personal-injury firms found 40.9% missed after-hours calls, including 29.2% of firms listed as 'Open 24 Hours' on Google.

Is the statistic that most customers buy from the first company to respond real?

There is no verifiable primary source for it. It is usually credited to a company called Lead Connect, but no published report or method exists anywhere, and every citation traces back to marketing blogs quoting each other. We don't use it, and you should be wary of any vendor whose pitch leads with it. The idea that answering first matters is well supported by other studies that do publish their methods.

How many calls do businesses in other industries miss?

In home services, about 27% of inbound calls go unanswered, based on Invoca's call-tracking data. The misses pile up when the business is busiest and least able to answer, which is the same pattern law and tax firms see after hours and during busy seasons.

Reference · Updated September 2026

What's the average lead response time? 42 hours.

Every number below has a source next to it. When a popular stat turns out to have no source, we say so instead of quietly reusing it. If your law firm or tax firm is being sold lead-response software right now, this page is the fact-check.

The headline numbers

42 hours: the average time to answer an online lead (Harvard Business Review, 2,241-company audit)
23%: companies that never answered at all
8x: the conversion lift when a lead is reached inside 5 minutes (XANT, 5.7 million leads)
Under 1%: first contact tries that actually happen inside 5 minutes
40%: law firms that answered their phone in a 500-firm secret-shopper study (Clio)
48%: law firms in that same study that couldn't be reached at all (Clio)
40.9%: personal-injury firms that missed after-hours calls, in a study of 1,000 firms (SSRN, 2026)

Law firms: the hardest numbers in any industry

Clio's 2024 Legal Trends Report paid for an outside secret-shopper study of 500 law firms. Shoppers called and emailed like real new clients. Here's what happened:

Only 40% answered the phone
48% couldn't be reached at all, even counting callbacks
Only about a third answered email at all
73% of shoppers said they would not recommend the firms they contacted

A separate 2026 study looked at after-hours calls to 1,000 U.S. personal-injury firms in 25 cities. 40.9% of firms didn't answer after hours. And 29.2% of firms listed as "Open 24 Hours" on their Google Business Profile didn't answer either.

One note on that second study: its authors are tied to an AI intake company. Treat it as a useful signal, not a neutral one. Clio's study is the cleaner source.

What this means for a firm: injury, criminal defense, DUI, and family cases often start at night or on a weekend. That's when the office is closed. The person calling is stressed and wants to talk to someone now. If your line goes to voicemail, the next firm on their list may pick up.

Sources: Clio Legal Trends Report 2024 · SSRN: After-Hours Intake Response Rates

Tax resolution firms: what slow follow-up costs

There's no large public secret-shopper study for tax firms yet. The numbers that do exist are industry estimates, and they point the same way.

A tax firm typically spends about $800 to $1,200 to win one new client (TaxCure, industry estimate)
After about 30 minutes, a new lead gets much harder to reach (LeadsuiteNow, industry estimate)

People looking for tax help often reach out to more than one firm the same day. A firm that pays hundreds of dollars for a lead and calls back the next morning is often calling someone who already booked with another firm.

Harvard Business Review, 2011: the 42-hour number

This is the most careful public check of the problem, and it's where the "average response time" figure comes from. Researchers sent a test lead to 2,241 U.S. companies and tracked what happened.

37% answered within an hour
16% answered within one to 24 hours
24% took more than 24 hours
23% never answered at all
Average response time, among those who answered within 30 days: 42 hours

Companies that reached out within an hour were about seven times more likely to have a real conversation with a decision-maker than those that waited even one hour longer. They were sixty times more likely than those who waited a day or more.

One caveat: this study is from 2011. It came before most people texted businesses and before modern lead forms. It's often misquoted as "47 hours." The published figure is 42.

Source: Harvard Business Review: The Short Life of Online Sales Leads

The InsideSales/MIT study: where the "5-minute rule" comes from

People usually call this "the MIT study." It looked at three years of data: more than 15,000 leads and 100,000 call attempts at six companies. The lead author, Dr. James Oldroyd, was a research fellow at MIT Sloan at the time.

The finding: reaching a lead within 5 minutes instead of 30 minutes made you about 100 times more likely to reach them at all, and 21 times more likely to qualify that lead.

Be exact when you cite it. It's company data studied by an MIT-connected researcher, not a peer-reviewed MIT paper. Call it the InsideSales/MIT lead response study. The effect is large and the method is public, which is more than most numbers in this space can say.

Source: Lead Response Management Study

XANT, 2021: the modern update

The biggest recent data set: 5.7 million leads and 55 million sales activities across more than 400 companies, from 2018 to 2020.

Conversion rates about 8x higher when contact happens in the first 5 minutes
Under 1% of first call attempts happen in that window
57.1% of first attempts happen a week or more after the lead came in

That second number matters most. Five minutes isn't a bar everyone else clears. Almost nobody clears it, which is exactly why clearing it is worth something.

Source: XANT Lead Response Report

Other industries: 27% of calls go unanswered

Invoca's call-tracking data across home-services businesses puts unanswered inbound calls at about 27%. The misses pile up when the business is busiest, because that's when nobody is near the phone. It's the same pattern law and tax firms see after hours and during busy seasons. An unanswered call with no voicemail leaves no trace in any report.

Source: Invoca: the cost of missed calls in home services

The statistic we refuse to use

The claim that most customers buy from whichever company responds first.

You'll see it, with a very precise percentage attached, on almost every page selling lead-response software, including from companies much bigger than this one. It's usually credited to "Lead Connect."

There is no such report. No method, no sample size, no date, and no original document anywhere. Every citation leads to another marketing blog citing another marketing blog. The related claim that "35–50% of sales go to the first vendor to respond," usually pinned on InsideSales, can't be traced either.

We don't use them. Answering first does matter, and the studies above show it plainly. A real effect just doesn't need a made-up number attached. If a vendor will invent a statistic to win the sale, think about what else they'll invent.

Source for the debunking: Expertise AI: Speed-to-Lead Statistics, Verified

What this means for your firm

Put the numbers together and the picture holds across fifteen years and millions of leads. Answering fast has a big effect. Most of that effect happens in the first five minutes. And almost no one manages it, because it means answering at hours when no person is free to answer.

That gap is why Webbynd exists. I build systems for law firms and tax resolution firms that answer every new lead fast, day or night. The 60-Second Callback Machine texts and emails every lead in under a minute. The Booking + Reminder System gets the consult on your calendar with reminders. At a Las Vegas tax firm running these systems, that meant 226 leads and 67 booked consultations in the first three months (June 18 to September 21, 2026), published with the firm's written permission. Results from one firm; yours will vary.

You work with me directly. There's no account manager. I take only three new builds a month, and the price is a flat build fee plus a flat monthly fee, set on a 30-minute call.

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Compiled and maintained by Alfredo Garcia at Webbynd, Las Vegas. Last updated September 24, 2026. If you find an error or a better primary source for anything here, email me and it gets fixed.